


A Minute Till Midnight

by plastics



Category: Original Work
Genre: Betrayal, F/F, Major Character Injury, Pre-Apocalypse, Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-09 17:24:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20998565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plastics/pseuds/plastics
Summary: People weren’t anticipating disease. War, global warming, pollution: all were pushing Earth to the brink of catastrophe, but it was disease that tipped the scale. Or, hell, they weren’t even sure it was a disease—didn’t spread like one, didn’t look like one, it barely even kill like one, a whole-body decay without a discernible source.But fuck if Gabrielle was going to let anything happen to the people who could make a difference.





	A Minute Till Midnight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alexandria (heartfullofelves)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartfullofelves/gifts).

When Gabrielle was still in college and thought her degree would accumulate to something more than being a glorified meathead, her school—an old, proud institution with a name that usually earned a raised eyebrow whenever Gabrielle had to name it—forced her into taking several math and science courses to round out her liberal arts education. She rode the curve through statistics and database management without incident, then slept through the second half of archeology. Biology, though. Biology had stuck with her.

Looking back, it probably had something to do with her lab partner, who was this beautiful Norwegian girl, Celine, who just seemed to _ breathe _the stuff. Gabrielle likely attributed Celine this passion because she wore big horn-rimmed glasses and most of the things out of her mouth were gentle corrections: move the decimal two places, capitalize the genus, make an incision on the ventral side.

She enjoyed it a lot. They went hiking and counted the number of birds they saw. Gabrielle and Celine made E. coli that glowed. Once, when Gabrielle was measuring the blood pressure and heart rates of seemingly half the class, Gabrielle held onto Celine’s wrist and told her, “Tell me if it hurts too bad.”

Anyway, Gabrielle enjoyed it a lot. A formative experience. She didn’t start seriously reading the science section of the newspapers she had to skim for her international relations classes or anything, but it left her briefly feeling more connected to the world. Made her wish she had a brain more geared towards science than reaction.

Then upper-levels sucked her in, chewed her up, and spat her out into a world tipping over an edge so sharp that it rendered everything behind unrecognizable.

* * *

The knock came late. Late enough that it could only really be one person. Gabrielle glanced reflexively at her roommate, but Igwe just rolled her eyes and turned more decidedly towards the wall.

“Hi!” Toni said once the door was open. “Got your flu shot. And yours, Adaego, if you’re interested.”

“No, I’ll just go to the clinic during open hours, thanks so much,” Igwe responds, flat. Gabrielle nudged Toni forward and closed the door behind them. The hallway was as bright and sterile as any hospital Gabrielle had been to; she didn’t think twice about rolling her sleeve up and letting Toni dab an alcohol swab onto her shoulder. Gabrielle only flexed her biceps a little. Not enough to make the injection hurt.

“I’m supposed to be getting a baci booster soon, too,” Gabrielle added. Toni’s bedside manner was never the best—the type to go silent, let you watch her crack you open, then be surprised when you pass out despite the local anesthesia. To be fair, she was never meant to be a medical doctor. 

She hummed in that yeah-sure-totally-not-happening, distracted. “Yeah, we’ll have to set that up at some point. Listen, I was wondering if you wanted to escort me out tonight?”

“Williams.” Gabrielle wanted her voice to sound disapproving, but in all honesty, this wasn’t surprising. The weather made an early turn into a long, winter, and it was only a matter of time before the compound really started to close in on itself. While no one was _ kept _inside, the Davenport Center had been designed to keep its inhabitants safe, buried deep in upstate forestry, and some chafed within the closed system. It never made much sense to Gabrielle. Light still shone through the domed roof, stars at night and a pretty, iridescent sheen in daylight. The air wasn’t that bad, either. No worse than flying, and infinitely better than the city air she’d grown up in.

But Toni was perhaps the worst offender when it came to escape acts, while also being near the top of the Center’s list of People Not to Lose. And it was Gabrielle’s job to maintain that list.

Toni smiled. Gabrielle sighed. “Let me change.”

Igwe didn’t adknowledge Gabrielle as she stripped off her sleep clothes in favor of dark pants, a high-necked, sweater, gloves, boots, her civilian respirator. The thing wasn’t much more sturdy than the breath trainer masks she used back in college, but since she probably wasn’t going to logging overtime for this excursion, it probably wouldn’t be appropriate to bring her work supplies, either.

It didn’t occur to Gabrielle until she’s back in the hallway that Toni was dressed similarly, like she already knew the answer when she walked over to Gabrielle’s building.

The clothes lasted until they were in the car. Gabrielle kept her eyes locked on the road as limbs twisted in her peripheral, glancing only once Toni had settled into place then snapping her eyes back into place, fingers squeezing hard on the steering wheel.

“So, I’m guessing I’m not just driving to the trails tonight,” Gabrielle said with forced ease. Toni snorted.

“Nah, a couple of college friends are in town. Thought I’d say hello.”

_ Some friends, _ Gabrielle didn’t say. _ Some hello. _

Gabrielle enjoyed their excursions a lot of the time. They both worked long hours. Long, hard, miserable hours, in Toni’s case. Last time, it’d been before the leaves fell, the sort of fall day where everything was wet and cool and fresh. Gabrielle had never really enjoyed cardio before, but just the two of them, the sounds of nature, clear air—she got it then.

Driving up the end location of Toni’s directions that end gave Gabrielle the exact opposite feeling. The world barrelling towards end times had, naturally, changed things pretty significantly on the ground, which is how you ended up with the sort of clubs that would’ve made sense in Berlin nearly a century ago springing up in the middle of nowhere.

Gabrielle glanced over again and caught Toni’s gaze looking back, analyzing, as she tied a faded pink bandana around her head. It left just her eyes visible, a parody of the mask on Gabrielle’s face. A tendril of annoyance went through her. The whole nihilistic, every precaution is the same as no precaution thing was _ fine _for the general populace to indulge in, it was their own lives they were risking, but it just looked wrong on Toni. She knew better than anyone else in a thousand-mile radius. Maybe in this continent.

“You can wait in the car,” she said.

“I’m not waiting in the fucking car,” Gabrielle snapped. It was unprofessional. Toni always brought the worst out of her.

Gabrielle didn’t let herself slam the car door after she got out. Forced herself to breathe, to focus. This was work. She would not eye the soft satin of Toni’s dress nor all the skin it left bare. The building met the regulations of its times and no better. Several unofficial additions had certainly not made it any safer despite the increase in traffic.

Risk appraisal was easy to settle into. Anonymous as the scene was, no one was bothering to hide their drugs, lust, or anything else. Toni’s friends are exactly how she imagined them. It’s more skin and less caution than Gabrielle had seen in a long, long while. The honesty of it all gave Gabrielle some comfort, at least. And it’s not like she’d never gone out before. It’d been years ago—probably at least a decade, if Gabrielle was honest with herself—with a different crowd, but letting her body fall into old practice was all part of the job.

The music was the sort of loud Gabrielle could feel with her whole body. She was sweating through her clothes, and people were pressing up against her from all sides, but she could still see Toni through the cluster of her friends, so it was fine. Almost fun.

Eventually, Toni slithered through the crowd up to Gabrielle, all smiles as she wrapped herself around Gabrielle and guided them both out of the swell with authority. They come to an open seat and Toni nudged Gabrielle into it. The music echoed through the whole building, but they were far enough from the DJ’s setup that when Toni brought her face up against Gabrielle’s, she could make out her saying, “I just want a drink, and then we can go, okay?”

The bar was in range. Surprisingly empty. Gabrielle nodded.

As her eyes slid off of Toni, they locked onto the gaze of one of Toni’s friends—short-haired, stark blue eyes. Gabrielle nodded a greeting, but they just rolled their eyes. Gabrielle shifted back in her seat, trying not to be annoyed. The energy she’d managed to dredge up was fading fast, and with it went any patience she had for the too-loud music, the smell, the carelessness of everyone around her. It was all the exact opposite of what she found so comforting living at the Center.

Toni didn’t sneak up on her, but Gabrielle still nearly startled when Toni bypassed free seats in favor of straddling her thighs. The heat seeped straight through Gabrielle’s pants, through her gloves when her hands went to rest automatically against the sides of Toni’s thighs, steadying. Her face was wide open, smiling, goading, and it sent a coiling want through the core of Gabrielle. She held still as Toni raised a free hand and traced along the edge of Gabrielle’s cheekbone, then tugged at the edge of Gabrielle’s respirator.

She jerked her head back, hard. Toni cooed, “Come on, you look thirsty.”

Gabrielle glanced at the cup in Toni’s hand—an open container, poured by who knows who, using who knows what, from who knows where. The potential for contamination branched out forever. Still, she could feel that greedy thing in her screaming for her to just do it, let Toni pull away that protective layer and pour the burn down her throat, press their bare lips together—

But none of that can happen. It cannot. Gabrielle caught Toni’s wrist when she tried to reach out again, held tight as Toni laughed, _ “Come on.” _

“I have to drive.”

“It’s one drink,” Toni said. “Trust me.”

“I do trust you,” Gabrielle responded. Even through whatever else was going that night, Toni’s eyes were still sharp, and she can pick up what Gabrielle left out. Her face twisted, sour, and with a fluid motion she was back on her feet, posture tight.

“Fine,” Toni said, barely not a snap. To the other person left at the table, “Let me know next time y’all are around, alright? Maybe I can give you a tour.”

_ “Toni,” _ Gabrielle hissed—there was no way anyone else in that building should be cleared to know where the Center was, let alone allowed within the facility—but Toni just cut her off again.

“It’s fine. Come on, Gabrielle.”

Then she turned her back and began walking towards the exit. Gabrielle wanted to say something back, like,_ I’m not your dog, _but in some ways, she was. It was her job to follow, to protect. Anything else was superfluous. It was Gabrielle’s own fault for letting anything get in the way of that. Letting it feel like anything else.

Toni had a sweatshirt on by the time Gabrielle circled back to her side of the car and opened the door. By the time they pulled back onto what passes for a main road around here, Gabrielle had started to really miss when radio stations existed for more than public service announcements. The hum of old engines. Anything to cut through the silence.

“You know I hate reminding you of this, Williams,” Gabrielle said eventually, “but it is, in fact, my job to be the boring one.”

Toni’s voice was sore and watery as it said, “It’s not just your job. And sometimes I really hate that about you.”

It burned. Gabrielle kept her eyes on the road.

* * *

People weren’t anticipating disease. War, global warming, pollution: all were pushing Earth to the brink of catastrophe, but it was disease that tipped the scale. Or, hell, they weren’t even sure it _ was _a disease—didn’t spread like one, didn’t look like one, it barely even kill like one, a whole-body decay without a discernible source.

Living at the Center sometimes made the end of the world feel easy, like heavy blankets on a shared bed after a Nor’easter knocks out the power. It was an illusion. Gabrielle had watched her parents, her friends, complete strangers turn gray and bloody. She hadn’t been able to do anything. She can barely do anything here. 

But fuck if she was going to let anything happen to the people who could make a difference.

* * *

Gabrielle jerked awake at the first thudding base of the alarm. 

Generally, the Center avoided anything that may drive up anxiety, its very design built to isolate any irregularities without causing a rippling effect. There were times Gabrielle felt like a secretary gently guiding people away from a toxic leak or bubbling violence.

Years of training set Gabrielle on an automatic path—clothes, gear, plan. She could hear Igwe doing the same behind her. They both knew their responsibilities. Thought didn’t factor into it. Panic and fear was locked in her stomach and no farther. 

Igwe and Gabrielle are the first to enter the hallway. The lights have dimmed to a deep, clear blue. Nothing seemed out of place. Gabrielle turned right. Igwe took left. Their building housed low-priority units—more crowd control than anything, herding everyone into basement, locking doors behind them. The likelihood of them being at risk for a targeted attack was low. 

Gabrielle’s ears rang. She forced her hands and feet to relax. Metal pressed against her side, ankle, and both of her forearms.

It wasn’t a surprise when her earpiece came to life, a male voice saying, “This is Orange Limo, checking whiskey drinkers, over.”

Igwe made a significant glance. Gabrielle responded, “Gallant Zebra and Active Iron have their supply locked up.”

There are six buildings within the Western quadrant of the Center. When no one else responded, LaBlanco continued, “Produce is running low on our cilantro supply.”

“What are whiskey suppliers supposed to do about cilantro?” Igwe responded. No one else in the room would recognize the stress in her voice.

“Another farmer is telling me Green Wallaby stayed out late for a drink.”

Gabrielle felt herself go cool. She rolled her shoulders. Looked at Igwe.

Igwe looked back. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Outside, the air was cool and heavy from the thunderstorm that had blown through earlier in the day. The roof fluttered around a gaping tear above her, pale against the night sky. She allowed a moment of dread, then moved on.

The Center’s campus was barely more than seventy-five acres at its core. The places where Toni could be willingly found in her off-hours were smaller, especially in the western ward. It should be safety, anyway, Gabrielle told herself. High-priority individuals lived at the center. Anyone with half a plan would be looking there.

She checked the gardens, the gym, the paths, circling out to the barrier. Updates came sporadically. Lockdowns confirmed, buildings cleared. No Toni. 

Gabrielle heard the crunch of gravel, someone moving fast, an echo—two people around the corner, a slide of a window. 

The building was essentially a warehouse, mostly domestic supplies. Gabrielle didn’t question it. She gave an update. The bioscanner let her in the front door. There weren’t many rooms to hide in. Her heart thudded in her chest. She withdrew her weapon, kept it aimed at the floor. Felt ridiculous for having it all, but what if—

There. No doubt in her mind. The shelves were stacked tall and full, but Gabrielle could recognize Toni anywhere, in bits. But the person next to her was clearly not from within the Center. They had a hand on her forearm, and Gabrielle could read the panic in those eyes from across the room. 

They weren’t observant, though, and was easy enough for Gabrielle to ease closer. The only difficult thing—the most important thing—was getting Toni away, and safe. It was all Gabrielle could think of. Blood rushed in her ears. She knew Toni and the kidnapper were speaking, hushed and soothing. Negotiating, maybe. Gabrielle could half-see Toni talking herself out this. It’d be like her.

But it waiting wasn’t worth the risk.

They turned a corner. Gabrielle reached out and pulled. 

Toni screamed, but within seconds it was drowned out by the deafening bang, two, three. Gabrielle felt a white blistering heat at her side. It didn’t matter. She could feel Toni tense and panicking at her side, resisting until their eyes met. Gabrielle watched shock take over, her face going slack, but Toni moved this time when Gabrielle pulled, so they went.

They got out. There were buildings nearby, but they weren’t safe enough. Who knew if that person was alone, if Toni was targeted or who they found first. They needed to get_ away— _

Gabrielle’s ears were still ringing, but she started to be able to make out Toni’s voice, high with panic. “Oh my god. That—guns? You have a _ gun? _ You both—”

“We need to go,” Gabrielle gritted out.

“You’re bleeding,” Toni said. “Oh my fucking god, he _ shot _you.”

“It’s _ fine. _ I’ve got my bacies, it’ll hold until we get _ somewhere safe,” _ Gabrielle said. She prided herself in remaining personable in crisis, but when Toni came to a halt, frustration rushed through Gabrielle.

“And you’re…” Toni looked skyward, eyes locking onto the tear. Her face contorted into something past shock. “No. No, you need—”

“I need you somewhere _ safe, _ Williams, fuck! You just got fucking held captive and you’re acting like I’m doing anything—”

Toni looked away from her and around, then said, “Millia has a lockdown room, right?”

“It’s a daycare center.”

Toni looked at her.

They went to Millia.

The irony of being surrounded by smiling cartoon animals and bright wooden blocks was almost unbearable, but Gabrielle could feel herself unwinding with Toni by her side and Davenport security between them and whatever else may be outside.

Gabrielle eased herself into an overly lush seat. Her side was starting to really sting without the adrenaline to distract her, but she wasn’t particularly worried. The Center loaded its employees to the gills with perks, and she could feel her skin already starting to stitch together. 

Toni was digging around in her bag, frantic. A zing of sympathy went through Gabrielle. She asked, “You good?”

“Yeah,” Toni said, distracted. She pulled a small medical cooler, Center standard, out of her bag and snapped it open. Gabrielle didn’t think to question when Toni said, “I want to give you another round of baci booster. Just. Just to make sure.”

“Sure,” Gabrielle murmured. The kevlar mesh in her sweater didn’t have much give, so she had to pull her arm out entirely, letting the hem gather around her neck. She only flexed a little. Fuck, it felt so normal after everything else that night. That month.

“I’m actually going to do this intravenously. Uh, you know, because this is a more serious case,” Toni said. Her voice sounded strained. 

“Are you even certified to do that?” Gabrielle asked, but she was mostly joking. Trying to lighten the mood. Maybe not completely appropriate, but they were safe here, even if Gabrielle would have preferred backup. She wanted Toni to _ feel _safe with her.

Toni didn’t answer. The syringe was large, filled with a clear liquid, as injections tend to be. Gabrielle let herself go limp just long enough for Toni to find a vein, quicker than Gabrielle anticipated, and start to depress the plunger. It felt cool going in. Gabrielle let herself breathe through it.

Toni didn’t look up until the needle withdrew, and when she did, her face was—well, sad, but Toni and Gabrielle had spent plenty of sad nights together. Sad, hopeless, terrifying nights. But that wasn’t what Gabrielle saw then. Toni looked… resigned. _ That _was new, and unwelcome.

Hesitantly, Gabrielle reached out and cupped her hand against Toni’s cheek

When Toni had first arrived at the Center, Gabrielle had underestimated her, thoroughly. In Gabrielle’s defense, she had arrived just as the compound started hosting families, so when she stumbled half-asleep out of the G-Wagen, synthetic pink hair piled on the top of her head and an oversized Spelman sweatshirt hanging halfway down bare, toned thighs, Gabrielle’s mind jumped straight to _ someone’s daughter. _

She’d seemed so young. It probably didn’t help that Gabrielle was often placed on Toni’s detail for off-hours, which meant Gabrielle got to see the tidal waves suck in and crash down, ecstatic distraction, bullheaded ignorance.

The moments of absolute, stunning brilliance.

Gabrielle didn’t lie to herself. She wanted so badly to press up against the blazing fire Toni held within her, but it was a line she couldn’t let herself cross. Couldn’t let either of them get distracted or hurt over something so trivial when their cause was so great.

But the shock of the night was truly starting to settle in—what could have happened in the intruder was even slightly more competent, the silence lingering in a few of their radio channels, their fucking roof being torn open while an unknown pathogen ravages the country—and Gabrielle could the cracks in her defense shivering, widening at the seams. And Toni is pressing back against Gabrielle’s hand, her face softening, and Gabrielle had hoped and wondered and was so close to sure, but she hadn’t _ known _ how perfect Toni’s lips would feel against hers.

Heat bloomed in her chest. A hot sting, like antiseptic on a cut.

“Oh,” Gabrielle gasped, leaning back in her seat. _ “Oh.” _

Pain had never been a big deal to Gabrielle. A sign to cool off for a moment and let her body recover. But this didn’t feel like anything she’d ever felt before. The sting seemed to spread with every beat of her heart, paralyzing her with a stunning hurt. And it wasn’t just the bullet wound, a through and through from a weak angle, but _ everything, _like she was corroding from the inside out.

“Ow,” Gabrielle said, voice high in her own ears.. She felt the corners of her eyes go watery, her cheeks suddenly so sensitive even the tears falling down them felt like too much.

In front of her, Toni was backing away, throwing her backpack back over her shoulder, the look in her eyes—Gabrielle didn’t even know what to make of it. Her mind whirled but she couldn’t push past the pain sizzling in her ears.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Toni said.

“What did you do to me?” Gabrielle sobbed, but Toni didn’t answer. Instead, she backed out of the room, not taking her eyes off Gabrielle until she turned the corner. Gabrielle heard her steps get further away, the slick of a door opening—the used needle—and then she was alone. Toni was gone.

Fuck, Toni was _ gone. _

* * *

“Then I called for reinforcements, and that’s the last thing I remember until I woke up here,” Gabrielle concludes. 

Men in suits are sitting at the foot of her bed. They’re the most recent of many men in suites to pay Gabrielle a visit, few of whom Gabrielle recognized, some painfully sympathetic, others hard as diamond. These guys were somewhere in the middle. Gabrielle can’t even remember the reason they gave for being here.

“I’m so sorry your experiences, Ms. Zhang,” the man closest to her says, his eyes flat. Gabrielle blinks and nods. It doesn’t take long for him to get to his real question. “Do you have any idea of what Williams might have injected you with?

Gabrielle shakes her head. “I thought she might have infected me, towards the end. But apparently not, unless I missed some major breakthrough with the cure…?”

“No, ma’am, I’m afraid you saw firsthand our most recent setback on that front. Your bacterial load had become dangerously low, though. Practically unprecedented, given your position.”

The question hangs in the air, and Gabrielle says slowly, “Dr. Williams mostly took care of my injections. I don’t—maybe it was stupid of me. I don’t know. I wouldn’t know if she was actually doing what she was supposed to be doing or using me as some sort of guinea pig or—”

“It’s fine. You did nothing wrong,” the man soothed. His friend stays silent, loitering by the closed door.

They talk in a few more circles. She’s told the story enough by now that it almost feels fake, like if they ask one more time something new will arise from the ashes. The drugs she’s on makes the world feel thin.

Eventually, the men excuse themselves, wishing her good health and promising to be back. Then the room goes silent. Gabrielle’s eyes felt so dry. She doesn’t recognize anything or anyone around her; they’d airlifted her into the city for treatment, another clinic owned by Davenport.

She hasn’t been this far from the Center in a long, long time.

Gabrielle closes her eyes.

* * *

For weeks, Gabrielle wakes up alone. Nurses tend to her. She’s not healing quite as well as the doctors had hoped, and they’re not sure why. Visits from men in suits become even more rare. At one point, one of them mentioned something they called a promotion but sounded like desk duty. To be fair, everyone is being relocated now that the Center is compromised.

She goes for walks. It’s not necessarily recommended, but she can’t stand being stuck in her room all day, weakened and useless. The nightmares take longer wretch her awake when she’s truly exhausted.

Endlessly, she thinks of Toni. The look on her face as she did what she did to Gabrielle. How she was acting those last few months, vibrating in place, like she was on the very cusp of _ something. _ What Gabrielle must have missed.

* * *

Winter settles in fast. Hardly anyone walks the streets. Anything off Main Street goes unpaved.

When she finds her, loitering around a small, artificial echo of their favorite lake near the Center, it’s honestly a surprise. She’d hoped, but. She wasn’t sure.

Even now, her mind races—_ what if there weren’t meant to be witnesses? If she said too much? What the _ fuck _ happened that night? _

But also: the bare shape of Toni’s head beneath her shorn-close hair, her tightly held posture, the absolute familiarity as she took a step towards Gabrielle, then another, running until they were pressed together, arms tangled tight around each other. Even the smell of her was familiar—some sort of sweetly artificial perfume that she made herself during down hours in the lab.

They pull back eventually, and the proxity—the deep, dark depth of Toni’s eyes, the lingering distrust there—sends a jolt of muscle memory through Gabrielle. She jerks back, a wave of sore fatigue washing over her like a reminder of the last time they were alone together, and Toni lets her go. They both freeze tight, eyeing each other.

“You really shouldn’t be here,” Gabrielle says after a long moment. The words feel so clumsy in her mouth. “I just got done telling anyone who’d listen that you’re a terrorist.”

Toni lifts a shoulder. Her voice doesn’t sound as light as she probably means it to as she says, “Well, if they haven’t found me yet. I’m glad you’re alright.”

The silence holds heavy. Gabrielle’s heart thuds in her chest. She knows what she should do right now, what people are expecting her to do. That she either will or she will not.

“You know,” Gabrielle says. “I fucking knew you were on to something.”

Toni squeezes her eyes shut, then opens them, staring over Gabrielle’s shoulder. “You know, I’ve, uh, never actually gotten a baci booster. My parents were real luddites, always, like, ‘If you want to be smarter, study more. If you want to be stronger, work more.’ And where I grew up was secluded enough that they still had old-fashioned vaccines, and then things changed so fast, by the time I graduated college, that fact had just… disappeared from the records. Or they didn’t even recognize that it was possible. I don’t know.”

Gabrielle stands there, stunned. Toni continues, like she hadn’t just dropped something more unlikely than her being a Martian or some shit, “When I first started out, I’d had this theory, like, why do we trust bacis so much? Just because we made them? Like, they’re _ bacteria, _ of course they’re going to mutate. And then when I started looking at the data, it all lined up so perfectly. The strains that were being distributed, the outbreaks. It was clear as day. Anyone could have seen that pattern. _ Anyone.” _

The wind blows. Gabrielle’s face tingles numbly. In the middle of what used to be the most densely populated area in their country, Toni’s words hung in silence. The beauty surrounding them twists sorely in Gabrielle’s chest.

Eventually, Gabrielle gargles past her choked-tight throat, “You could have said something.”

Toni laughs, an electric, bitter thing. “I think you’d be surprised how many of our coworkers weren’t exactly duped into playing their part.”

_ But it’s me, _ Gabrielle so desperately wants to say, _ Don’t you trust _ me?

Then again, Gabrielle knows herself—her blind loyalty, always a step behind, cut off from so much outside that she’d always immersed herself completely in whatever cause opened up in front of her. It’d gotten her hurt before, but this is incomprehensible. Even standing here, now, having felt the truth of what Toni is saying…

And now Toni is looking at her, and they both know there’s a decision to be made. Gabrielle can turn around, go back, content with herself as one of the lucky few. Or she can go forward. 

_ Into what? _ she thinks, like a puppet whose strings just snapped loose. _ For who? _Another supermassive cause she can only just make out the outline of? Because the woman she loves is holding open the door? Gabrielle can feel their time slipping away, and they can’t talk this through, and even if they could, what else is there to say? She can’t go back to the Center, or anywhere in the Davenport system. Not now.

Gabrielle cannot go back. Once the thought occurs to her, it settles in deep. There’s no decision to make.

She says, “I’m sorry I shot at your friend.”

Toni laughs again, although it’s wetter now. “It’s okay. He’s an asshole. It scared him straight, you know, for a few days.”

“I could try again,” Gabrielle offers. “Although, I should warn you, I’m very far from my peak right now. What with him actually shooting me and you immediately knocking out my entire immune system.”

“I really am sorry. _ We’re _sorry. I promise there’d still be room for you. Without guns. If you—if you’re willing.”

Gabrielle can see it Toni’s face—how much she’d been hiding, how little she is now. They’re still standing close enough to touch, so Gabrielle does, collecting Toni’s hands in her own. She can feel the deep, startling cold in them even through her gloves. The thought of taking them off to cover Toni’s drifts easy in her mind. Build a fire. Shift the axises their world spins on. Whatever it takes.

**Author's Note:**

> But, seriously, get your flu shot if you’re able.


End file.
